A chrome'd out Nux ready to die.
Chrome is a slang term used by War Boys. It can mean a variety of different things, due to the value placed on chrome as an alloy, it is primarily used in a religious context. It is also believed that the more chrome something is, the more glorious it is. Most prominently, near death War Boys will huff chrome spray paint in their final moments to enter into a dissociative high that will lead them on the road to Valhalla, and give them cool chrome coloured teeth and mouth.
As A War Drug
Inhalants such as spray paint are commonly huffed using bags, but in true War Boy fashion, health and toxicity are not an obstacle in their "half-life", and spray personal cans of paint directly on their face under their nose. It is likely that the brain-damaged stupor that huffing paint creates allows them to more openly accept death in their final moments, ensuring the Boy's absolute fealty to Immortan Joe, where chrome'd War Boys ask for their brothers to "witness".
Inspiration
War Boy's act of spraying their teeth with chrome paint was inspired by a 1981, Oscar nominated documentary entitled "Front Line"[1]. It follows the career of Tasmanian-born combat cameraman Neil Davis, particularly his time in South Vietnam and Cambodia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. George Miller said in an interview[2]
| “ | I saw a documentary where young [Cambodian] soldiers would go into war, they had little jaded deities -- and before they ran into battle, they put them in their mouths and just held them with little straps. | ” |
– George Miller | ||
Seeing this peculiar act on screen inspired him to create a similar ritual for the War Boys whom would spray their teeth with chrome paint before battle (or more precisely, before an attack) which would help bring them to Valhalla. Additionally, this ritual is analogous to a real world act of 'Chroming'[3], i.e. inhaling intoxicative volatile vapors or gases of chrome paint via the nose and trachea.[4]